Costa Rica 2000

Tuesday, August 1, 2000 - Corcovado, Costa Rica

It rained with thunder and lightening last night. At high tide
the crashing waves were so loud, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't always
distinguish between thunder and waves. It was so loud it sounded
like 60-80 mph wind, but there was no wind there over 8 mph. A nice
breeze by the ocean, but no strong winds.

There was one critter noise near my tent all night. I didn't want
to use the restroom at night (no electricity at night - power of flashlight
only), but it was going to be a few hours before light and I was in distress.
Once it quit raining, I went. All I saw were 2 huge toads.
The night before we also saw a red crab hiding in the dining area.
During the day we saw lots of Jesus Christ lizards and another kind.
We also saw a 3-foot long green iguana.
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We ate breakfast about 6:30 am. (Sun rises at 5:30am).
We had grain cereal with warm milk, watermelon, pineapple, papaya, rice
and beans, scrambled eggs, pancakes and orange juice. If you like
healthy meals, there is no way to be hungry here.

After breakfast, we took a short walk north on the beach. It was
misting the first part and cleared for the return trip. We played
in the rivers and walked along the beach. The boys enjoyed throwing
a tennis ball or their sandals up the river and catching them as they floated
back. They also love rearranging the rocks and sand in the river.
We saw three scarlet macaws flying overhead and squawking, and we saw
brown pelicans in the water and flying overhead. We saw a Yellow-headed Caracara
eating turtle eggs on the beach. The bird had a
white chest and head, brown rest of the body, and when flying, it had white
wing bars midway on it's wings. It also had stripes on it's tail.
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For lunch we had cooked broccoli, cooked cabbage with corn, sea bass
that seemed to have a coating (it was EXCELLENT!!), rice, beans, bread
and lemonade.

Today started off cloudy, then turned clear, but not bright. It was
somewhat steamy. It will surely be hot in the jungle. We left
for the jungle at 2:30 pm on the canopy tour hike. It was sunny and
we were sweating, but it wasn't real hot. I'd guess the hike back
took about ½ hour. There was a covered shelter near the tree
with the platform. There we put on harnesses and hard hats.
All our packs and cameras were lifted up in the tree first. There
was a platform about 8 or 10 feet square one hundred or so feet in the
air. There were 3 Tico helpers. One at the top to help disconnect
you from the pulley and reconnect you to the safety ropes on top; one at
the bottom of the platform to hook you to the pulleys, and one strong Tico
to manually turn the crank to get us visitors to the top (one at a time).
I was the last one to the top. Fairly soon we saw spider monkeys.
I took several pictures, but it was cloudy and dark, and only one was very
decent. I then turned to look in a different tree and saw a brown-mandibled
toucan. Then with one shot left in my camera, I let someone else
take me and Skyler's picture. (Asher was at the bottom - not old
enough to come up on the platform.) By that time it started raining,
and I couldn't change my film in the rain. It poured, and we decided
we were a lightening hazard on top of the tree, so we descended, by pulley.
We walked back in pouring rain.
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At 6:30 pm, it was dark, so we waited in the hammock hut which had
hammocks, a bar, dart board and ping pong table. The electricity
is on during the day to cook the meals. We were waiting for 7 pm
supper. A frog was making a loud noise between a "whoop" and a "bloop"
(like a drip or a bathtub drain).

Supper was cooked squash, spinach soup, cooked eggplant, rice, chicken
with mushrooms, baked potato with sour cream, carrot and orange juice,
bread and coffee cake with marshmallow cream type frosting. There
were 16 guests tonight, 8 last night. One new family from Atlanta.

Rain had started again, not heavy (8:30 pm), but there was lightening
and thunder. The ground was pretty soppy. The water in the
bathrooms comes directly down the mountain from the streams. They
always have good water pressure. I don't understand tropical septic
systems, but toilet paper is put in the trash can. Showers are cold
water only, but cold water there isn't as cold as cold water in Kansas.

When I checked the boys, both were asleep in the same bed (cot-sized).